2008/6/11 Sebastian Heinlein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > Hello Arne, Jerome, Danilo and Ubuntu translators,
Hello. > at UDS Prague I had a short discussion with Arne and other translators > about Rosetta and the general translation process. Here is a summary of > the raised issues. Yep, unfortunately I left for the airport before the session. I've just a few additional comments and tips that I was aiming to share, and also an English translation of our home page. > So the education of good translators is more important to us than > getting a huge number of translated strings (of questionable quality). Yes, definitely. The most important parts to do in Rosetta is checking for highly visible omissions in translations (new strings not in upstream, or possible import errors), translating *ubuntu-docs and checking that translation do not diverge from upstream translations. Contributing back to upstream when such stuff is done in Rosetta is necessary, too. All that requires quite educated use of Rosetta and other tools. > As far as I know the Finnish team made a manual clean up of their > translation. But to be honest this involves a lot of click-click work > and I am not sure if I find anybody who is willing to do so for the > German translation. Yes. What I did was to use URL https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/hardy/+lang/fi?batch=1500 , when it still worked in the previous LP version, sorted the whole by the "Changed" column and went through each translation that had 1 or more string changed from upstream. It was a relatively huge job, clicking one by one "Packaged" on each template's each changed string, but in the end I had reviewed that the changed strings left were actually necessary, and also such that were contributed in newer upstream versions so that they will be marked "Packaged" in the next Ubuntu again. The effort would be nearly impossible for those languages that had more of the "wild times" in the early Launchpad / Rosetta times when some teams accepted everyone (hundreds!) on the language team and there was _no_ way to do QA. For some very largely changed templates, I took the upstream PO file and simply uploaded it as the "User upload" (since Public upload doesn't overwrite Launchpad changes). That's a way to revert big problems in specific packages, though at the same time one might overwrite some good changes with regards to upstream translations. Regarding QA, that batch=1500 URL was the only easy way to do QA also, since the only QA method in Rosetta is sorting by the "Last Edited" column and looking through what was changed. Now that the batch size was limited, I use a bookmark folder with five links like https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/hardy/+lang/fi?start=0&batch=300 and https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/hardy/+lang/fi?start=300&batch=300 etc. These methods I use to keep Finnish translations in good condition speak also about the clear problems in Rosetta, though by knowing these tricks helps of course. Until a year ago Rosetta was also so broken that the "Changed" column didn't really work, so the first time it was possible to systematically fix broken translations for Ubuntu was for the gutsy release. Anyway, Sebastian had so good points I won't go on commenting all of them. Just wanted to share some of what I've done to keep things in shape - Finnish translations are currently in a rather good shape in hardy. We also have a list of requirements for any potential new translations on our home page, which has proved to be good enough so that the new people on the team are sufficiently capable and communicative. Especially the part about writing something about itself on one's Launchpad page has been a good measurement about whether the applicant has read the home page or not :) Sebastian asked me at UDS-Prague (if I recall correctly, it was in the bar) to list them in English, so I'll just translate the whole home page more or less. The text below is written by me and in public domain. --- = Ubuntu Finnish translators = Ubuntu Finnish translators translate Ubuntu into Finnish. Translating Ubuntu in Rosetta is most useful a month or two before the next Ubuntu's release, when all pieces are in place but some translations are missing. Before this it's useful to participate eg. GNOME (gnome.fi) or KDE (kde-fi.org) translation projects. [a chapter about only "main" being in Rosetta, and "universe" packages are always translated in upstream projects] Group's mailing list is at https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-l10n-fin - each member should join it. [a chapter about current situation, eg. link to Rosetta's hardy translations and saying that until August-September it's recommended to join upstream translation projects so that 8.10 translations are as complete as they can get, coming from upstream - at the same time translations are not forgotten to be sent to upstream when they are done in upstream] Note! Translator group's membership lasts automatically for a year, after which it has to be renewed by sending e-mail to the group leader. There will be a notification about this via e-mail. == About translating == Information about translating, translation projects, dictionaries and communication channels may be found from Ubuntu Finland's page: http://wiki.ubuntu-fi.org/Kaantaminen [a chapter reminding that translations have to be sent to upstream projects too] === Translating help texts === Be especially careful to use same terms in UI and help text translations. When referring to different help chapters, check first how the titles of the chapters have already been translated. More information about translating documentation at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DocumentationTeam/Translation. == Joining the translation group == We are aiming for high quality Ubuntu translations. To join Ubuntu's Finnish translators group, it is beneficial for you to meet the following criteria: === Language skills === - you handle Finnish (mother tongue) well and don't do typical mistakes (like compound words written separately, invalid dashes, writing each word capitalized because English does so (Finnish does not), using slang or jargon instead of proper Finnish) - you understand that localization isn't about translating word-by-word, even though the message of the original text has to be well delivered - you have used a free software desktop in Finnish before so that you're familiar with GNOME/KDE vocabulary (localization dictionaries have to be used always anyway) === Testing translations === - when translating future Ubuntu programs, you're ready to install the development versions of those programs for testing translations (more info on the link above) - alternatively you may use development version of the whole Ubuntu - you may also leave untranslated those strings you are not certain about, and thus avoid installing development versions - it's usually possible to translate documentation relatively well without testing them in the program, if you just have a newish version of the program === Communication and general knowledge about localization === - you get to know to different localization projects' web pages - you use your real name in Launchpad's "Display Name" field - you write a little about your localization experience and language skills (especially Finnish) to your Launchpad home page (click your name from "Logged in as", and choose the link "Home Page" from the left) - you join Ubuntu's Finnish translators mailing list, https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-l10n-fin - other possibly interesting methods of communication - IRC-channels #lokalisointi (IRCnet) and #ubuntu-fi plus #ubuntu-fi-tiimit (Freenode) - Ubuntu Finland's web forums http://forum.ubuntu-fi.org/, specially the area about development version http://forum.ubuntu-fi.org/index.php?board=24.0 You may find the joining link to the translator group from the left part of this page, if you are logged in to the Launchpad. -- ubuntu-translators mailing list ubuntu-translators@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-translators
